[opendtv] Re: Digital TV: Brazil to Adopt Anything But the American System
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:19:23 -0500
inline ...
Albert Manfredi wrote:
> Tom Barry wrote:
>
>
>>Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
>>
>>>I'm simply saying that we have ATSC, we have "miracle
>>>chips" that finally work, so why aren't broadcasters at
>>>very least pushing to get these improved products out
>>>to the public?
>>
>>Because broadcasters do not sell CE products. CE
>>companies do.
>
>
> Tom, do you really think that cable and DBS companies would be equally
> uninterested and uninvolved in the existence, or lack thereof, of interface
> boxes to their media? Or telephone companies?
>
Cable & DBS companies are in the business of promoting, selling, and
leasing receivers. They believe their livelihood depends upon it.
Obviously broadcasters do not.
> Do you really think that auto companies would think of marketing an
> automobile without knowing if the tire companies had adequate tires for it?
> Just sort of leave that up to chance? Hey, we aren't tire companies, we
> can't be held responsible for that minor detail?
>
I do not believe broadcasters feel they depend upon OTA very much
anymore, with or without functional tires. Of course, this will be a
mistake since if it becomes obvious OTA in ATSC form is unnecessary then
the broadcasters will have trouble showing any value added.
> Since we indulge in conspiracy theories so readily on here, why isn't the
> reason much more likely to be what Craig has often advocated? That it is to
> the advantage of the broadcasters that OTA work poorly, so they are
> "guaranteed" access to umbillical media. And that their OTA plants are only
> there to meet a bureaucratic requirement for the rights to the other media?
> So let's not push for the corrected products to reach consumers. Let the
> ancient designs, expensive and inferior in performance, persist, so we can
> used our same old tired song from 1999 to get access to the other media.
>
I don't think broadcasters want OTA to work poorly. I think they just
don't care as long as they get good carriage deals on cable & sat. My
own guess is that broadcasters would love ATSC to work well but just are
not willing to rock the boat to get it.
> I can't begin to understand why last weekend, in late January of 2006, the
> best box I could buy in any store was a design that is more primitive than
> what the CRC tested, and submitted in a report, on 4 April 2002. This is a
> completely preposterous, and frustrating, state of affairs.
>
Because nobody feels it justified to put R&D or marketing money into
standalone ATSC STB's? Because after years of trying or at least
watching that market they do not believe it is profitable?
> For that matter, I also can't understand why the majority of stations can't
> go to the tiny effort it must take to keep their DTT clocks half-way on
> time. I don't even mean within seconds, but is a couple of minutes, at
> least, asking too much? Is this evidence of "who the heck cares," or what?
>
Yes, it is evidence of "who the heck cares". Basically everyone is
STUCK until something changes.
>
>>And the CE companies obviously do not believe those
>>ATSC products exist that can be profitably sold at this time.
>
>
> I laughed out loud today when, in a radio newscast, I heard that some people
> were going to be "forced" to watch the Superbowl in SD. Know why? Because
> many cable companies don't carry ABC in HD. Imagine that. Hey, how many
> spots have we seen where ABC explains to the viewers how to get access to
> their OTA HD feed? Must be that cable is the only way to get ABC, or for
> sure we would have heard otherwise, right?
>
Cable and sat is indeed the way most people get HD. I have another
annual hardware poll about ready to release, with no major changes.
>
>>They may exist on paper or on one-off demos
>
>
> They exist on more than paper. Yet, we keep hearing a retelling of events
> from 1999, as if in the interim, nothing had happened. The excuse given for
> my having to buy a CE product some three to four years obsolete is that
> seven years ago, some comparison test looked bad for ATSC. How illuminating.
>
I don't listen to the excuses but they quite obviously DO NOT EXIST IN
THE MARKET. They didn't last year and won't next year.
They are STUCK.
> How many times have we heard broadcasters referring, in passing, to the "30
> foot mast requirement" for ATSC reception, as if that were fact? Even with
> my obsolete STBs it's not fact. But hey, why not make a bad situation even
> worse?
>
I believe that is truly the criterion for ATSC "working". It obviously
misses the market by a mile but that is still what was specified and
tested.
Basically I believe this state will continue until the mobile guys
actually manage to get some spectrum and start taking the video market
with newer and better technology.
At that time the content providers will start selling their content to
mobile and also directly to cable & sat, bypassing the OTA broadcasters
who will have to sell out on fairly bad terms. There will be little
value in being a government protected network affiliate once the prime
content has all moved to other channels. And there is nothing that says
that NBC, for instance, has to put any given show on NBC/OTA vs one of
GE's subsidiary cable channels. The broadcasters are just middlemen
that may be easily eliminated once they provide no significant extra
eyeballs.
Note also that the broadcaster's ability to bribe Congress with free ad
time is only proportional to the number of eyeballs they can deliver.
If people aren't watching the local broadcasters (at least on cable)
then those broadcasters lose lobbying points.
- Tom
> Bert
>
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